Russia finally began their World Cup campaign against South Korea, but lost captain Roman Shirokov for the tournament due to a back injury. This game arrived the day before Coach Fabio Capello’s 68th birthday. The Koreans kept faith with goalkeeper Jung Sung-Ryong despite some poor performances in recent friendlies, having lost four out of five.

Son Heung Min wasted an early counter-attack by blasting over, while Alexander Samedov was at full stretch and couldn’t quite control a smart Dmitry Kombarov cross at the back post.

Koo Ja-Cheol caused a stir with an effort that was deflected just off target, but Son Heung-Min wasted horribly by ballooning over after good work from Park Chu-Young.

Capello must’ve got the hairdryer treatment out at half-time, because Russia came out with a very different attitude. Within 70 seconds Victor Fayzulin had forced Jung Sung-Ryong to palm out from under the bar, then Vasily Berezutskiy nodded the resulting corner on to the side-netting.

Korea also woke up, as Igor Akinfeev had his gloves stung by long-range efforts from Koo Ja-Cheol and Ki Sung-Yeung.

Akinfeev was shaky again when parrying a free kick from Hong Jeong-Ho and the Korean shot-stopper did the same on Eshchenko.

The Russian goalkeeper had been threatening a howler and it finally arrived, as he fumbled a long-range Lee Keun-Ho strike into his own net. It was a disastrous moment for Akinfeev, who essentially punched it over his head and failed in a desperate scramble to get it back under control.

However, Capello’s men equalised soon after with another less than top quality goal. An Alan Dzagoev angled drive was beaten away, ping-ponged around the six-yard box until substitute Alexander Kerzhakov eventually bundled it over the line.

Alexander Kokorin couldn’t keep his header down and Samedov blasted over from a promising position.